


Third Party

by FuriousPoplar



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (sort of?), Aborted No Mercy Route, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Language, Gen, Post-Pacifist Route, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 00:19:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5561488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuriousPoplar/pseuds/FuriousPoplar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightmares aren't too tough to deal with at first, but they get a lot scarier when they could become real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Third Party

**Author's Note:**

> Next time I write something it'll be less gloomy, pinky-swear.

_The dust was choking. It flooded through the golden hall, blasting against his face and threatening to sand him away bit by bit where he stood; it took whatever strength he could find to brace against the gale and keep his two feet planted._

_He hoped that maybe it was just normal dust, but no. Why would it be? Smelled like his friends._

_A voice drifts into his mind from a thousand different directions. It sounds like a massive crowd speaking in perfect sync and unison._

**_“There you are.”_ **

_It sort of looked like a puppet. Spindly rubber wires rose from its body into nowhere, dragging and pulling its skin taught and forward as its insides seemed to reluctantly drag along. In its entirety, it seemed to just be a big hole in reality; a clear outline, but the rest of it was pitch black with no depth. Its only real defining features were a loosely gripped knife that glowed a sickly, dim red, and an ear-to-ear smile that didn’t have a hint of joy behind it._

_He tried to open his mouth, to say something back, but his jaw was locked shut._

_**“It took so long to get here, but I finally get to kill you.”**_

_Just for me, huh? How flattering._

_**“Just one more loose end and I’m done. Then I can erase this damn timeline and move on.”**_

_He felt like he’s seen this part before. It starts to melt across his entire vision, like ink spilling onto a page. The dust disappears. The knife and a thousand more like it appear in his ribs. Maybe he tries to use an attack or dodge or something, but his arms and legs don’t listen to him._

                The next moment, his eyes are open and slowly drifting between cracks in the ceiling. 7th time so far. He knows he ought to tally it down in his notes, for whatever reason he ever bothers taking them, but that can wait. Right now, he just wants to stare at this ceiling. It’s real, so it’s already a huge improvement over everything else.

“still not real. still never happened.” His voice sounded even more dull and raspy than he was used to.

“at least, i don’t quite remember it. heh. close enough, right?”

He got out of bed and left the room without really knowing why. Some part of him wanted to be somewhere else and the rest of him didn’t have a good counterpoint. Half-way down the stairs, he saw something weird on the couch. It was slumped awkwardly and barely moving; it sort of looked like a kid. He took a few more steps.

It _was_ a kid.

“whaddaya you doing up so late, bucko?”

Their head snapped up to him automatically, and then gently drifted back. It was hard to make out any details in the dark, but they looked almost disappointed to see him. Or maybe they were just tired.

“…Guess.”

The response was so hoarse and muted that it left Sans wondering if he had just imagined it. He prodded the inflections and tone of it in his head to figure out which half of them was speaking- the scales tipped towards Chara.

“same reason as last time, i’d bet.”

Their head seemed to waver up and down. Sans assumed it was a nod.

“Nightmares. What happened in yours?”

“same as always. hardly scary anymore, but i’m getting real sick of them.” Sans sat down on the couch and tried to force a cheerier tone onto his words, but they shunned his efforts and came out sounding dry and hollow.

He took the opportunity to get a better look at the kid’s face- they seemed to be ashamed and contrite, but the emotion was buried so incredibly deep under an overwhelming presence of weariness, leaving them looking far older than they were. But… even deeper, there was the faintest twinge of something that disturbed him. 

Fear.

On Frisk, it wouldn’t have bothered him so much. That kid still had _some_ innocence to them, they were still _almost_ normal. But Chara?

There wasn’t a whole lot that Chara feared.

“you uh… well, yours seems to be bothering you more than it usually does. what… happened?”

“It came back.” It sounded as if they had barely managed to push the words out of their mouth. Sans could see why- there had been only 3, yet each one gave him a disgusting, writhing feeling. Usually he got, “I watched everyone die” or “I killed everyone” (depending on who was talking). Occasionally there would be an “I woke up back on the flower bed” or an “I died over and over again”, but they always seemed a little relieved to get those ones.

_It came back._

That’s a new one. New wasn’t good.

“…it?”

“Oh. I haven’t told you yet, have I?” They smiled a little bit, but they didn’t even seem to be doing it consciously.

“I know we agreed that it’s best not to talk about my… _mistake_ …” They spat and cringed as they spoke, like they couldn’t stand the taste of the words on their tongue.

“…but I can’t really explain it any other way. Back in the underground, during the you-know-what, I didn’t actually have control over Frisk’s body, not significantly. I got to swing the knife or take a step forward, here and there, but I wasn’t making any decisions. We were doing everything I wanted to do, however, so I wasn’t complaining. I thought that I had just tricked Frisk into doing what I wanted, that they were listening to what I told them to do. You know the rest. They felt bad, reset, made things right and now the three of us are stuck with the same fucking nightmares every time we have the audacity to try and get some rest.”

A remorseful, gentle sigh dulled the edge from their voice. “I’m sorry. Even with what I’m about to say, I’m still so, so sorry.”

Something in him suggested that he respond, ‘Thanks a fucking bunch’, but it wasn’t a part of himself that he agreed with. _Everyone can be good if they just try._ He wasn’t sure if he believed those words, but he knew that he’d like to.

“you know that i forgive both of you. there’s nothing you can do now anyway, other than not doing it again. you got that covered, don’t you?”

The white dots in his eyes flickered away when he saw the shaky grin on their face.

“D o n ‘ t  y o u ?”

“I was just getting to that. A couple nights ago, Frisk and I had a talk, and… well, I learned something from them that I’d rather not have.

Frisk didn’t have control.

They thought that I was killing everyone myself, that I had stolen their body from them.”

Sans felt something crawling on his back.

 “Frisk keeps telling themselves that they’re wrong, that they did have control and that they’re just in denial, but I know that’s bullshit. They do too, but can’t bear to admit it.

So that’s what’s really been scaring me. I didn’t have control. Frisk didn’t, either.

So who killed them, Sans?”

Sans watched their face closely. The weariness and shame faded away. The fear wasn’t hidden anymore.

“What… w-what if they come back?”

“that’s not going to happen.” A faint crack in his normally steady tone betrayed a lot of undesirable truth.

“Y-you don’t know that. I-I can tell that you don’t!”

“okay, but why would it? you, it, or whatever, already killed everyone, right? why do it again? what’s the point? been there, done that.”

The kid started to howl with laughter. It didn’t sound like laughter, though. It sounded like they were screaming, but were shaking too much for it to come out as one continuous screech.

“No, w-we didn’t! That’s the funny part! We stopped, we stopped after killing you! Never saw the ending! H-Hey, we already got _this_ ending, right? But we have to do _everything_. We never got around to murdering Asgore or… or A-Asriel, we never got to watch the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD _BURN!_ ”

Their voice rang in his ears and tore down the halls. Bedroom lights flicked on and everyone leaped out of bed, shadows dancing out from the cracks under the doors. He would have told them to stop, to calm down and stop yelling, but it was too late, so why bother? Right now, he just wished that they would stop smiling like that. He just wished that their eyes would stop twitching. He just wished that they’d stop _laughing_.

“We already know what happens when everyone gets to live, when I and everyone else finally gets to be happy, so now it’s going to come back, so we can undo it all, and kill everyone I love, one by one, roll around in the dust, all because we just HAVE to see what happens!”

Everyone was leaning out of their doors now, or running down the stairs to figure out what was happening. The kid wouldn’t stop laughing.

“It’s going to make me kill everyone again. It’s just so funny. It’s so funny… i-it…”

Their laughs fell apart into babbling hiccups as everyone ran up to the couch, wanting to know what was going on, wanting to know why the kid was saying such horrible things, and if they were okay.

Sans just keep staring at them. The smile finally withered away from their cheeks, leaving their lips quivering like they didn’t know what else to do. The fear was all he could see now- maybe something was buried under it, but he didn’t want to look.

The next moment, his eyes are open and slowly drifting between cracks in the ceiling. The familiar feeling of a LOAD pulsated around his body. He could remember what had happened right now, but it was falling apart in his head, piece by piece. He didn’t bother putting anything in his notes, he was glad to be able to forget what had just happened.

The details were already getting fuzzy, but he knew that he had to go talk with the kid, that they needed help. So he got up out of bed and left the room, this time knowing why. A big part of him wanted to stay and just let it be their problem, but that part could go to hell for all he cared.

The kid was sitting on their bed, eyes puffy and damp. They looked like someone had really hurt them- not physically, but with ideas and thoughts that cut deeper than any blade could ever dream of. The details got fuzzier still, but he knew that they had done it to themselves, and that made it sting even more.

He tried to open his mouth, to say something to them, but he had nothing. So instead, he just sat down next to them in silence.

“I’ve never seen Chara so scared. I’m worried about them.”  The kid’s voice returned to the soft, youthful hum that meant that Frisk was speaking.

“They’re… hiding, right now. I keep trying to call out to them and calm them down, but they’re really freaking out.

I… I’m scared too, Sans.”

“i know.” The words didn’t mean anything, but he felt as if he needed to say _something_ , even if just to make sure that his voice hadn’t withered away when he wasn’t looking.

“I need you to promise me something.”

Sans let his grin dip as far down as he could, trying in vain to scowl.

“you know i hate promises.”

Frisk _did_ scowl. It made Sans a little jealous.

“We’re fr… we’re _family_ , right? You trust me, don’t you?” Their voice was panicked, like they were begging with him.

“of course.”

“Then trust me when I tell you that I’m not giving you a choice. Lock this away in your memory, or write it down, or however you keep track of things between resets, because I’m not going to let you forget it.” The stiff edge in Frisk’s voice made him sad more than anything else. Whenever they try to come off as serious, they always just end up sounding tired.

 “I… I know how it thinks, sort of. It’s weak. Once it starts to get frustrated, or tired, it’s easy to overcome. That’s how I reset; after it…”

They didn’t seem quite ready to say the next part, so Sans did it for them.

“after it killed me.” He regretted it immediately; the kid winced like they’d just been hit.

“Uh-huh. After that, it was really… fed up? I thought that Chara was just worn out after dying so many times, but… I guess it wanted a break, or something. I felt it weaken, and got just enough control to reset.

So… promise me, if you ever find yourself back in Snowdin, that…”

They stopped to take a deep, quivering breath.

“That you won’t h-hesitate, okay? Promise me that you won’t hold back until it’s too late t-to kill me.”

They unclenched their eyes to look Sans in his. In them, he saw… maybe it was hatred. Maybe it was just fear, making a funny face. Whatever it was, it glowed like dying embers.

 “I’m not letting anyone get hurt. I’d rather die in agony a million times than let that _thing_ hurt ANYONE.”

Their brow un-furrowed a little when Sans didn’t respond.

“I mean it, Sans! I need you to promise!”

Still nothing.

“ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!?” They clenched their teeth together to muffle their yell, like it was a flying bullet they needed to silence.

“…okay. i promise.” It could barely be heard over the kid’s heartbeat; he really couldn’t manage more than a whisper.

They let their muscles give out and slumped into his shoulder, letting their face burrow into his hoodie.

“I… Chara and I… we would never u-undo what we have with you guys. If… if there’s a-another reset, it’s not us, okay?”

“i know, frisk. i know.”

“I love you all so much. Chara does too, but they’re too embarrassed to admit it.”

Sans didn’t feel like talking anymore, so he wrapped his arm around them instead.

Sitting upright was an awkward position to sleep in, but they were too tired for it to be their choice.

Besides, the nightmares would leave them alone if they stuck together.

 

 


End file.
